Systems Management Protocols

SNMP

The oldest of the three protocols, the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) was originally developed to manage networks and network devices such as hubs, routers, and gateways. SNMP was later extended to manage more diverse components, such as operating systems and applications software. It remains the dominant systems management protocol.

SNMP is an application-layer protocol that facilitates the exchange of management information between network devices. It is part of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocol suite. SNMP enables network administrators to manage network performance, find and solve network problems, and plan for network growth.

SNMP relies on TCP/IP datagrams (for functions requiring a connection-based protocol) and UDP datagrams (when a connection-based protocol is not needed). The packets used are small and add little to the network overhead.

Security for SNMP is provided by case-sensitive community names. By default, the password is set to public and is made read-only. For greatest security, the community name should be changed to one unique to your network.

The information SNMP gathers from a network is stored in a Management Information Base (MIB), a hierarchical (tree-based) database that stores attributes of managed devices. The most general information available about a network is stored at the top of the MIB. Each branch of the tree then details a specific network area, and the leaves of the tree represent specific attributes of the object to be monitored or managed.

SNMP Operation

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